By Pastor Phil Stanley. December 17, 2023
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2Ew447rTJs
I hope you all are having a wonderful Christmas time this year. We’ve been living at such a breakneck pace that the entire year has just flown by and it’s a little overwhelming at times.
I’ve spent a few moments this week reminding myself that I need to slow down a little and enjoy Christmas before it’s over. How many of y’all feel that a little this year? We all have a lot going on and it seems to get busier and busier but I want to encourage you to pull up on the reins a little bit and take the next week or so to spend time with friends and loved ones of course, but also take some time to be alone with the Lord.
We get in a rush too often trying to make everything happen for everybody and if we’re not careful we can neglect the most important reason for the season.
We have 8 days until Christmas and if we all read 3 chapters a day we can read the book of Luke by Christmas. So I challenge you to join me and spend a little time this week reading through the birth, life, death, and resurrection that this season is all about.
I love Christmas and have been excited to share a Christmas message with you all for what feels like forever. The Lord first gave this to me in like the second week of November and for one reason or another it just hasn’t worked out for me to share it until today.
I want to look at a Bible character that has precisely zero lines of dialogue, is only mentioned a handful of times, but is the very model of how we are to live and respond as children of God.
Let’s read the familiar Christmas story from Matthew:
Matthew 1:18 This is how Jesus the Messiah was born. His mother, Mary, was engaged to be married to Joseph. But before the marriage took place, while she was still a virgin, she became pregnant through the power of the Holy Spirit. 19 Joseph, to whom she was engaged, was a righteous man and did not want to disgrace her publicly, so he decided to break the engagement[h] quietly.
20 As he considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream. “Joseph, son of David,” the angel said, “do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife. For the child within her was conceived by the Holy Spirit. 21 And she will have a son, and you are to name him Jesus,[i] for he will save his people from their sins.”
22 All of this occurred to fulfill the Lord’s message through his prophet:
23
“Look! The virgin will conceive a child!
She will give birth to a son,
and they will call him Immanuel,[j]
which means ‘God is with us.’”
24 When Joseph woke up, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded and took Mary as his wife. 25 But he did not have sexual relations with her until her son was born. And Joseph named him Jesus.
Visitors from the East
2 Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the reign of King Herod. About that time some wise men[a] from eastern lands arrived in Jerusalem, asking, 2 “Where is the newborn king of the Jews? We saw his star as it rose,[b] and we have come to worship him.”
3 King Herod was deeply disturbed when he heard this, as was everyone in Jerusalem. 4 He called a meeting of the leading priests and teachers of religious law and asked, “Where is the Messiah supposed to be born?”
5 “In Bethlehem in Judea,” they said, “for this is what the prophet wrote:
6
‘And you, O Bethlehem in the land of Judah,
are not least among the ruling cities[c] of Judah,
for a ruler will come from you
who will be the shepherd for my people Israel.’[d]”
7 Then Herod called for a private meeting with the wise men, and he learned from them the time when the star first appeared. 8 Then he told them, “Go to Bethlehem and search carefully for the child. And when you find him, come back and tell me so that I can go and worship him, too!”
9 After this interview the wise men went their way. And the star they had seen in the east guided them to Bethlehem. It went ahead of them and stopped over the place where the child was. 10 When they saw the star, they were filled with joy! 11 They entered the house and saw the child with his mother, Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him. Then they opened their treasure chests and gave him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.
12 When it was time to leave, they returned to their own country by another route, for God had warned them in a dream not to return to Herod.
The Escape to Egypt
13 After the wise men were gone, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream. “Get up! Flee to Egypt with the child and his mother,” the angel said. “Stay there until I tell you to return, because Herod is going to search for the child to kill him.”
14 That night Joseph left for Egypt with the child and Mary, his mother, 15 and they stayed there until Herod’s death. This fulfilled what the Lord had spoken through the prophet: “I called my Son out of Egypt.”[e]
16 Herod was furious when he realized that the wise men had outwitted him. He sent soldiers to kill all the boys in and around Bethlehem who were two years old and under, based on the wise men’s report of the star’s first appearance. 17 Herod’s brutal action fulfilled what God had spoken through the prophet Jeremiah:
18
“A cry was heard in Ramah—
weeping and great mourning.
Rachel weeps for her children,
refusing to be comforted,
for they are dead.”[f]
The Return to Nazareth
19 When Herod died, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt. 20 “Get up!” the angel said. “Take the child and his mother back to the land of Israel, because those who were trying to kill the child are dead.”
21 So Joseph got up and returned to the land of Israel with Jesus and his mother. 22 But when he learned that the new ruler of Judea was Herod’s son Archelaus, he was afraid to go there. Then, after being warned in a dream, he left for the region of Galilee. 23 So the family went and lived in a town called Nazareth. This fulfilled what the prophets had said: “He will be called a Nazarene.”
A lot happens in these opening chapters of Matthew but I want to focus on the guy who literally let his actions do all the talking for him. Jesus’ earthly father Joseph.
We all make the jokes, we all kind of chuckle at the thought of Mary informing Joseph that she’s pregnant and that it’s from the Holy Spirit.
Can you really imagine that? Even if it was an arranged marriage, as was common in those days, it would still be embarrassing, humiliating, and infuriating. It only becomes worse if you think they were sweethearts. That’s another type of pain altogether.
But faced with an impossible situation, he was still looking to do the right thing. Look at it again picking up with verse 19:
19 Joseph, to whom she was engaged, was a righteous man and did not want to disgrace her publicly, so he decided to break the engagement[h] quietly.
20 As he considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream. “Joseph, son of David,” the angel said, “do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife. For the child within her was conceived by the Holy Spirit.
Now notice what happens in verse 24:
24 When Joseph woke up, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded and took Mary as his wife.
Joseph is put in a bad spot but he doesn’t let the situation cloud his judgment. He takes action. He obeys the Lord and sticks with Mary.
He trusts the Lord and accepts the responsibility of parenting a child that isn’t his own.
It’s so easy to gloss over this because we have the gift of knowing all that happened later. How difficult would it be to live that out day by day not knowing what the full picture looks like?
He proves he believes the Word of the Lord when he follows through in naming the child Jesus.
Fast forward a couple of years and Joseph is once again thrown into a crisis. Looking at it again in chapter 2 verse 13:
13 After the wise men were gone, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream. “Get up! Flee to Egypt with the child and his mother,” the angel said. “Stay there until I tell you to return, because Herod is going to search for the child to kill him.”
14 That night Joseph left for Egypt with the child and Mary, his mother, 15 and they stayed there until Herod’s death. This fulfilled what the Lord had spoken through the prophet: “I called my Son out of Egypt.”[e]
Notice the pattern yet? Each time Joseph hears from the Lord he takes action and he does it without hesitation.
It reminds me of one of my dad’s favorite lines growing up:
Delayed obedience is disobedience.
It’s not enough to obey when we get around to it. We endanger our God given assignment when we hesitate, think we know better, or otherwise delay our obedience.
We see it all throughout the Bible and I’m sure we all can point to times in our lives when we’ve clearly heard God warn us about something and yet we’re slow to take action. Why do we do that? Why is it so easy to put off doing what God tells us?
Proverbs 21 tells us plainly in back to back verses:
2 People may be right in their own eyes,
but the Lord examines their heart.
3 The Lord is more pleased when we do what is right and just
than when we offer him sacrifices.
You can’t buy your way out of being obedient. Whatever sacrifices you could ever bring is nothing compared to taking right, just and immediate action.
We all think we’re right and it’s hard to convince any of us differently, but our actions are always going to reveal the motives of our heart.
Have you ever considered the inconvenience of picking up and moving to a foreign land with a small child and very little resources? It’s a lot to digest but Joseph didn’t linger or protest. Remember the message I spoke a month ago about Zachariah? He was also given seemingly impossible instructions and was unable to just say “yes sir” and move on. He protested and became mute for months. But not Joseph. He got up that very night and did what God told him to do.
This cycle is repeated again when God tells Joseph it’s safe to come home in a dream.
19 When Herod died, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt. 20 “Get up!” the angel said. “Take the child and his mother back to the land of Israel, because those who were trying to kill the child are dead.”
21 So Joseph got up and returned to the land of Israel with Jesus and his mother. 22 But when he learned that the new ruler of Judea was Herod’s son Archelaus, he was afraid to go there. Then, after being warned in a dream, he left for the region of Galilee. 23 So the family went and lived in a town called Nazareth. This fulfilled what the prophets had said: “He will be called a Nazarene.
What I love about how Matthew wrote this is that he added all the footnotes for us after the fact.
Each time God tells Joseph to do something, Matthew adds the why behind it for us all.
First: 22 All of this occurred to fulfill the Lord’s message through his prophet:
23 “Look! The virgin will conceive a child!
She will give birth to a son,
and they will call him Immanuel,[j]
which means ‘God is with us.’”
Second: This fulfilled what the Lord had spoken through the prophet: “I called my Son out of Egypt.”[e]
Third: 23 So the family went and lived in a town called Nazareth. This fulfilled what the prophets had said: “He will be called a Nazarene.”
The moral of the story is this:
We rarely have the full picture when God asks us to do something. We need to take immediate action, trust that whatever difficult step God puts in our path will ultimately lead us to the destination He has for us, and let our actions speak louder than our words.
What has God been saying lately that you’ve wrestled with obeying without questioning? Is there an action you need to take today?
